Commission to help county deal with BESS, agencies
Editor, Thank you, Richard Elkins, for your recent letter to The Star.
On Jan. 7, the Kendall County Commissioners Court voted to form the Hill Country Energy Sub-Regional Planning Commission (HCESRPC) with Kerr County to address safety concerns of battery energy storage systems (BESS).
This SRPC will give our counties a seat at the table and the right to force direct coordination with any state agencies having to do with BESS, such as Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Public Utility Commission of Texas, and others.
Several SRPCs across Texas have successfully used this state statute, including Waller County, to protect citizens from the Texas Department of Transportation’s plan to build the Trans-Texas Corridor, which would have taken more than 500,000 acres of land and displaced more than one million people.
The Texas Border SRPC was formed by Uvalde and Kinney counties and the city of Uvalde to fund the costs of undocumented immigrants coming into their communities. The SRPC was able to coordinate with state agencies to get financial and other assistance to handle cartel crime, drug smuggling and human trafficking.
The HCESRPC budget will be minimal, since most of the work involves email correspondence; any costs for postage and regional travel would be covered in our county budget.
Legal expenses are not anticipated. If they do arise, Dan Byfield, attorney and founder of the American Stewards of Liberty, has offered to help through this nonprofit as he has helped many of the established SRPCs.
Other tools we are using to protect the health, safety and welfare of our residents from BESS include working with the fire marshal to use our Community Wildfire Protection Plan and the newly adopted chapters of the 2024 Fire Code.
Again, thank you, Mr. Elkins, and the residents who engage for the betterment of our community.
— Andra M. Wisian Kendall County Commissioner Pct. 2
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